大象传媒

Your daily journey into global arts, culture and entertainment, with Harriett Gilbert.

Frank McCourt
Over the weekend the author Frank McCourt, whose first and best-known book was his Pulitzer Prize winning memoir 'Angela's Ashes', died in his adopted city of New York. The Strand examines how McCourt's book about his poverty-stricken emigrant childhood won him international acclaim as well as spawning a whole genre of "misery memoirs". And from the World Service's arts and culture archive, we hear from Frank McCourt himself speaking to Harriett Gilbert about his literary success.

Skin
We review 'Skin' - the new award-winning South African movie starring Sophie Okenedo and Sam Neill. The film tells the true story of Sandra Laing who was born in Piet Retief, a small conservative town in apartheid South Africa. She was remarkable for the fact that she was a child born to white parents but having a mixed race appearance herself. From the age of 10 she was rejected by the white society and embarked on a lifelong search to understand her place in South African society. The newspaper columnist Hannah Pool, who is Eritrean by birth but adopted by white British parents, comes into the studio to review it for us.

E-books
With a Chinese IT group now announcing that they have produced a version of the Amazon Kindle - the Strand explores the future of publishing and asks what writers themselves think of the e-book.

Farahad Zuma's novel The Many Conditions of Love is published by Little, Brown.
Roma Tearne's novel Brixton Beach is published by Harper Press.
Lesley Lokko's novel Rich Girl Poor Girl is published by Orion.